Street art, the new string to the artistic bow of Paris? Strolling through the streets of the capital, passers-by and tourists can no longer miss the dazzling playgrounds that dot the neighborhoods, signed by a different street artist each time. From the TEP (free access physical education grounds) Duperré in the Pigalle district to the one adjoining the Nelson-Mandela garden near Les Halles or the Vincent-Auriol ground, in the heart of the 13th arrondissement, Paris is embellishing its streets with giant works, integrated into street furniture and in this case sports equipment. Why are we seeing an explosion of these street art pieces on outdoor sports grounds? What is the project behind these embellishments?
“The most famous and one of the first to have been painted is the TEP Duperré where even foreign basketball players want to come and put a basket there,” says Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of sport, of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is the starting point for our reflection on the “Olympic Games heritage project”. A work of street art integrated into a playground is all beneficial because it is quick to execute, it is an improvement in Parisian sports equipment and it conveys a strong cultural link”. So much so that this land, famous on social networks and especially Instagram for its visual side, has almost become a tourist site in the capital.
For Romain Froquet, visual artist specializing in questioning the link around the line, and at the origin of the playground near Les Halles, “using the beautiful values of sport to convey an artistic message, it’s perfect”. And this is indeed the project of the City of Paris, which is counting on 34 renovated and embellished sites on the horizon of the Olympic Games, thanks to agreements made with private partners. “If it were up to me, we would do them all again,” exclaims Pierre Rabadan again. In these highly urbanized places, it is essential to bring life and color to the middle of the buildings, in working-class neighborhoods such as Stalingrad under metro line 2. This is the atmosphere we want”.
An “Olympic legacy project”
“In Paris, the outdoor grounds were in a fairly degraded state, impossible in these conditions to include them in our “Olympic heritage project”, recalls Pierre Rabadan. Transforming them into unique works of street art was a track that made it possible to rally the basketball federation and some of their private partners”. Thus, the Town Hall has signed a first agreement with this federation and its partner Caisse d’épargne, as well as with the National Sports Agency to initially renovate 15 pitches, the last of which to be inaugurated is in the Parc Montsouris, in the 14th arrondissement. “It was made exclusively in shades of green because the Buildings of France intervened and imposed constraints”, explains the deputy to the Town hall of Paris.
If the specifications are generally not very restrictive, except the obligation of the place, certain classified districts restrain the artistic imagination deployed by the street artists. “At the Champ de Mars, the two pitches that need to be renovated cannot be painted, we are going to try to work on the aesthetics of the baskets, but the architects of France are very rigid”, confides Pierre Rabadan, who adds that renovating a playground costs around 50,000 euros. Romain Froquet did not experience such constraints, “creative level, I had carte blanche”, to transform the land near the Nelson-Mandela garden, and affix his unique signature.
“Provide a sense of belonging”
“I involved quite a few children in the project, as well as local merchants, so that this place belonged to everyone,” recalls the visual artist. This is the dimension of urban art: giving a feeling of belonging to all the users of the place who live in the district”. A point of view shared by Pierre Rabadan: “the district is proud to have such a valued and valuable place. The inhabitants pay more attention to it, there is much less damage. Everyone comes out a winner.”
It also evokes the more diversified access to these lands, once the site has been embellished. “It’s really more attractive, especially for girls, who find the place less hostile, with more people, safer”. The elected mayor of Paris experienced it during a visit to the TEP Léo Lagrange in the 12th, “where a lot of girls go to play”. It is also the way to bring more young people into the sport, by collaborating with local associations to retain the practice. “Basketball has a very strong proximity to urban culture, it was the most obvious sport to associate with these unique playgrounds,” says Pierre Rabadan. We should also deploy on handball and football, as we tested during the Euro with TikTok, and which worked very well ”.
“More and more markers of street art culture”
For the time being, it is therefore basketball that holds the rope. The town hall has also signed a partnership with the NBA, which arrives in Paris on Thursday evening. “The Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons are each financing a street art fresco in two sports facilities, one in the Kellermann gymnasium in the 13th arrondissement and the other in the Didot gymnasium in the 14th arrondissement”, completes Pierre Rabadan. “Sport and art, it’s a very good recipe, is also delighted Romain Froquet, whose work on the line reasons with the delimited grounds and by the rules of the game. “The line is everywhere in sport, graphically it was super interesting. And seeing people playing basketball on a work you’ve done is great. You don’t do that with a painting,” he jokes.
“In Paris, we have more and more markers of street art culture and we are delighted about it”, shares Pierre Rabadan, citing in particular the 13th arrondissement, the Tuileries tunnel “originally very gloomy”. “Even if there is an attachment to the non-perennial nature of street art, we are indeed heading towards a normalization of this form of art, which makes it possible to take off the too often affixed label of degradation”. “When we embark on street art, we know that it is ephemeral, that the street is a playground and that our works can disappear at any time”, poetizes Romain Froquet. “But these are real works of art”, insists the elected representative of Paris. See you soon in season 4 ofEmily in Paris ?
